The Old Regime in Canada

by Francis Parkman

Francis Parkman is an nineteenth century American historian. He devoted most of his life to a seven volume history of "The French and English in North America." "The Old Régime in Canada" is the fourth volume of the series and mainly covers the years from 1643 to 1663. Parkman is an excellent writer who organizes and tells a good story. - Summary by Richard Carpenter

Genres: History

Audiobook

Published February 2, 2015

About the author

Francis Parkman was an American historian.

He is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.

Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893.

Reviews

[Graychin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While his prose never disappoints, this fourth installment of Parkman’s France and England in North America is notably weaker than the prior three. There’s plenty to fascinate, disgust, and entertain, but the narrative stutters along with only faint thematic coherence. At any rate, I can’t praise the first three volumes highly enough. I may now skip ahead to Montcalm and Wolfe, Parkman’s history of the French and Indian War, which is supposedly his masterpiece.

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Old Regime in Canada” starts off very much like the 3 earlier books in Parkman’s histories. Deprived settlers, torturing Indians, devout clergy, wise and unwise administrators, royal intrigue. Adventures are described, but adventure less of daring and more of perseverance, luck, and in a rare handful of cases, careful planning. But near the 2/3 mark of the book, Parkman moves quickly ahead through in-depth descriptions of clerical leaders from the Catholic Church and military appointees as governmental leaders. After describing how these men brought more professional and more modern ways to governing, Parkman delves into changes in Canadian society that came about because of these changes in the leadership of the country. There were no more tales of adventure. They were replaced in the last third of the book with tales of societal issues – young men avoiding dealing with laws by disappearing into the frontier, educational topics limited by the government, forced marriage and payments for large families, the appearance of beggars on the streets, the growth of an often paid noble class, and more. Parkman explained to me the historical reasons why Canadians are different than Americans. I had not run across this before. Very interesting. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

[Stephen Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book takes more of a big picture approach to really examine the big flaws with the entire French experiment in Canada and, if you thought Parkman was too obviously in the tank for the French in the first books of this series, well, you'll get a nice surprise here as he lays most of the blame for the disastrous results right at the feet of the French rulers themselves. Beautifully written, of course. I'd rank this one just below The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century and above Pioneers of France & Discovery of the Great West.